The Speed Traders Workshop 2015 Kuala Lumpur, “How Banks, Hedge and Mutual Funds and Brokers Battle Markets ‘RIGGED’ by Wall Street’s ‘Flash Boys’, High-frequency Trading, Exchanges and Dark Pools” (http://thespeedtradersworkshop.com), is the first and most comprehensive initiation to the world of high-frequency trading with Edgar Perez, author of Knightmare on Wall Street (http://knightmareonwallstreet.com), and will open the door to the secretive world of computerized low-latency trading, the most controversial form of investing today; in the name of protecting the algorithms they have spent so much time perfecting, speed traders almost never talk to the press and try to disclose as little as possible about how they operate.

The Speed Traders Workshop 2015 Kuala Lumpur covers the latest research currently available and reveals how high-frequency trading players are operating in global markets and driving the development of electronic trading at breakneck speeds from the U.S. and Europe to Japan, India, and Brazil. The “flash crash”, the suspended BATS IPO, the botched Facebook IPO, Knight Capital’s trading malfunction and NASDAQ’s Flash Freeze are just a few of the milestones in the history of high-frequency trading that will be dissected with participants.

ABOUT EDGAR PEREZ

Mr. Perez is the author of Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets (2013), and The Speed Traders, An Insider’s Look at the New High-Frequency Trading Phenomenon That is Transforming the Investing World, published in English by McGraw-Hill Inc. (2011), 交易快手, published in Mandarin by China Financial Publishing House (2012), and Investasi Super Kilat, published in Bahasa Indonesia by Kompas Gramedia (2012).

Mr. Perez was a vice president at Citigroup, a senior consultant at IBM, and a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. in New York City. Previously, he managed Operations and Technology for Peruval Finance. Mr. Perez has an undergraduate degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, Lima, Peru (1994), a Master of Administration from Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru (1997) and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School, New York, with a dual major in Finance and Management (2002). He belongs to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. Mr. Perez resides in the New York City area with his wife Olga, son Edgar Felipe and daughter Svetlana Sofia.

In the days prior to Thanksgiving 2013, malware designed to steal credit card data at Target was surreptitiously installed. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the company had installed a malware detection tool. Target had specialists in Bangalore to monitor its computers around the clock. Two days after Thanksgiving, the malware was spotted. The team in India got an alert and flagged Target’s security managers. And then?

Nothing happened. Target’s alert system had worked effectively. But then, Target stood by as 40 million credit card numbers flowed out of its computers. Only a few months later, CEO Gregg Steinhafel and CIO Beth Jacob were both out of the company.

Cybersecurity has become widely recognized as a critical corporate challenge. Boards and senior managements are putting it on their agenda, categorizing cybersecurity not as a compartmentalized risk for the information technology team, but as strategic and enterprise-wide.

However, a security program is only as strong as its weakest link. While a survey by the Institute of Internal Auditors found 58% of board members felt they should be actively involved in cybersecurity preparedness, only 14% said they were actively involved. Unfortunately, 65% also said their perception of the risk their organizations faced had increased.

Board members and senior managers need to become more educated about the topic to be able to ask questions that are strategic yet granular enough to address company-specifics. To go further, it will be imperative to join Cybersecurity Boardroom Workshop 2015, the first seminar targeted at strategic and executive leaders for whom cybersecurity readiness is a relatively new yet critically important area to be intelligently conversant about.

Cybersecurity Boardroom Workshop 2015 is specifically designed for board members and senior executives of public and private firms looking for new ways to gain and maintain competitive business advantage. Business executives with responsibility for IT, finance, compliance, risk management and procurement as well as entrepreneurs and innovators are welcome.

By the end of Cybersecurity Boardroom Workshop 2015, to be held in Dubai, March 8-9, Hong Kong, March 12-13, Seoul, March 19-20, Singapore, March 26-27, London, 9-10 April, and New York City, April 16-17, participants will:

Understand enterprise cybersecurity and the impact on shareholder value in the short and long term

Identify immediate security needs for the organization with actionable steps for senior management

Learn how to identify current and future challenges to better enable management to focus on threat reduction and operational reliability

Get up to speed on international and domestic approaches and frameworks for effective cybersecurity practices corporate wide

DAY 1: UNDERSTANDING THE CYBER WORLD

Understanding Cybersecurity

The trillion dollar global cyber risk environment

The enterprise-wide challenge of protecting the organization’s assets

The impact of cybersecurity attacks on shareholder value

Identity theft and the legal implications of data breaches

Social Engineering: The “Weakest Human Link” in Cybersecurity

The responsibility for cybersecurity in the organization

Assessing the quality of the cybersecurity workforce

Evaluating shortcomings in meeting cybersecurity workforce standards

Assessing the effectiveness of current professionalization tools

Understanding the Cybersecurity Testing Method

Reconnaissance: How to use tools to find vulnerable systems and devices

Packet sniffing: How to gather information from computer systems

Port scanning: How port information is exposed on computer systems

Password policy and cracking: What to consider when developing password policy

Vulnerability: How to reduce attacks by enforcing proactive compliance policies

Basics of Security Architecture for Board Members and CXOs

How architecture defines the structure of a system and makes it explicit

The fundamentals of layered architecture: presentation, business, data, and service layers

How the current computer network infrastructure was not designed originally to be secure

Embedding architecting security into systems from inception

DAY 2: RESPONDING TO THE CYBERSECURITY CHALLENGE

Introduction to NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework

Describing the enterprise’s current and target cybersecurity posture

Identifying and prioritizing opportunities for improvement

Assessing and accelerating progress toward the target state

Communicating with internal and external stakeholders about cybersecurity risk

According to the Financial Times, Bursa Malaysia and the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) have both been upgrading their trading systems in recent months to accommodate electronic traders and make it easier for foreigners to trade their markets, including high-frequency traders. Bursa Malaysia has reported in the past growth in the daily average number of contracts traded, in part due to what it said was an “outreach” to high-frequency traders. “We will continue our efforts in offering more tradable alternatives and improving market structure and framework. All these will support our initiatives in expanding our regional presence and in taking us a step closer to being Asean’s multinational marketplace,” said a spokesperson for Bursa Malaysia.

Cybersecurity and electronic trading expert Edgar Perez, author of The Speed Traders (http://www.thespeedtraders.com) and Knightmare on Wall Street (http://knightmareonwallstreet.com) will open the door to the secretive world of computerized low-latency trading, the most controversial form of investing today; in the name of protecting the algorithms they have spent so much time perfecting, speed traders almost never talk to the press and try to disclose as little as possible about how they operate. The Speed Traders Workshop 2015 Kuala Lumpur, “How Banks, Hedge and Mutual Funds and Brokers Battle Markets ‘RIGGED’ by Wall Street’s ‘Flash Boys’, High-frequency Trading, Exchanges and Dark Pools” (http://thespeedtradersworkshop.com), is the first and most comprehensive initiation to the world of high-frequency trading with

The Speed Traders Workshop 2015 Kuala Lumpur (http://thespeedtradersworkshop.com) this June 5 will cover the latest research currently available and reveals how high-frequency trading players are operating in global markets and driving the development of electronic trading at breakneck speeds from the U.S. and Europe to Japan, India, and Brazil. The “flash crash”, the suspended BATS IPO, the botched Facebook IPO, Knight Capital’s trading malfunction and NASDAQ’s Flash Freeze are just a few of the milestones in the history of high-frequency trading that will be dissected with participants.

ABOUT KNIGHTMARE ON WALL STREET

Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets is a thrilling minute-by-minute account of the terrifying hours following Knight Capital’s August 1, 2012 trading debacle, with news-breaking research regarding the firm’s 17 years of tumultuous existence as an independent company. Knightmare on Wall Street is the definitive behind-the-scenes story of Knight Capital.

The firm, founded by Kenneth Pasternak and Walter Raquet in 1995, had seen its fortunes change as U.S. regulators made a series of changes in the structure of financial markets and computers were progressively expanding their share of trading. The Flash Crash, the infamous 1,000 point drop of the DJIA on May 6, 2010 (the largest one-day point decline in history), illustrated how market structure problems could almost instantaneously cascade from one market participant to the rest.

Thomas Joyce, CEO of Knight Capital since 2002 and an unapologetic advocate of electronic trading, had been scornful of those companies that struggled to keep up with ever-changing stock markets. So it was certainly shocking that at 9:30 A.M. on August 1, 2012, right after the markets opened for the day, Knight Capital began issuing an unprecedented number of erroneous orders into the market, due to an error in installing new software. No rogue trader or regulatory change; operational risk was passing the bill to Knight Capital and becoming the biggest risk in the financial markets.

Knight Capital announced later a staggering loss of $440 million. What followed after this shocking announcement were several rounds of desperate conversations with a number of vulture players who had smelled opportunity and were readying themselves to pick up bargain-priced pieces. On August 6, 2012, Joyce confirmed that Knight Capital had struck a deal with Jefferies, TD Ameritrade, Blackstone, GETCO, Stephens, and Stifel Financial, staving off collapse days after the trading mishap.

While Knight Capital was back in the game, its limping recovery quickly prompted hungry competitors to bid for the entire company. On December 19, 2012, the board decided to accept an acquisition proposal from GETCO rather than Virtu Financial. For GETCO, acquiring Knight Capital represented a gigantic fast forward step. For Knight Capital, it was the end of its wild ride as an independent entity.

Knightmare on Wall Street provides a fascinating account of what it took to elevate the firm to the cusp of the retail investing revolution of the late 1990s, to struggle through booms and busts, and to bring the firm down, to end up ultimately being ignominiously bought up by a competitor.

ABOUT THE SPEED TRADERS

High-frequency traders have been called many things—from masters of the universe and market pioneers to exploiters, computer geeks, and even predators. Everyone in the business of investing has an opinion of speed traders, but how many really understand how they operate? The shadow people of the investing world, today’s high-frequency traders have decidedly kept a low profile—until now. In this new title, The Speed Traders, Edgar Perez opens the door to the secretive world of high-frequency trading (HFT). Inside, prominent figures of HFT drop their guard and speak with unprecedented candidness about their trade.

Edgar begins with an overview of computerized trading, which formally began on February 8, 1971, when NASDAQ launched the world’s first electronic market with 2,500 over-the-counter stocks and which has evolved into the present-day practice of making multiple trades in a matter of microseconds. He then picks the brains of today’s top players. Manoj Narang (Tradeworx), John Netto (M3 Capital), and Aaron Lebovitz (Infinium Capital Management) are just a few of the luminaries who decided to break their silence and speak openly to Edgar. Virtually all of the expertise available from the world of speed trading is packed into these pages.

The Speed Traders, published by McGraw-Hill Inc., is the most comprehensive, revealing work available on the most important development in trading in generations. High-frequency trading will no doubt play an ever larger role as computer technology advances and the global exchanges embrace fast electronic access. The Speed Traders explains everything there is to know about how today’s high-frequency traders make millions—one cent at a time.

ABOUT ELECTRONIC TRADING AND CYBERSECURITY EXPERT EDGAR PEREZ

Mr. Perez is the author of Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets (2013), and The Speed Traders, An Insider’s Look at the New High-Frequency Trading Phenomenon That is Transforming the Investing World, published in English by McGraw-Hill Inc. (2011), 交易快手, published in Mandarin by China Financial Publishing House (2012), and Investasi Super Kilat, published in Bahasa Indonesia by Kompas Gramedia (2012).

Mr. Perez was a vice president at Citigroup, a senior consultant at IBM, and a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. in New York City. Previously, he managed Operations and Technology for Peruval Finance. Mr. Perez has an undergraduate degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, Lima, Peru (1994), a Master of Administration from Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru (1997) and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School, New York, with a dual major in Finance and Management (2002). He belongs to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. Mr. Perez resides in the New York City area with his wife Olga, son Edgar Felipe and daughter Svetlana Sofia.

Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker challenged her senior technology managers to be more collaborative and coordinated in modernizing the agency’s technology infrastructure.

The result of that challenge is a four-pronged approach to the sharing of IT resources.

Steve Cooper, the Commerce Department’s chief information officer, said four working groups are examining the opportunities across technology, finance, human resources and acquisition.

“We are moving toward achieving true shared services in the sense that whatever services are identified by each of those work streams we will then, most likely — and we haven’t done this yet but this is where we are heading — by the end of quarter two or the beginning of quarter three of this fiscal year so we are making very good progress…the idea will be for those services that we agree are viable and could be delivered through a shared services set of providers,” Cooper said. “We’ll likely create an organization inside the Department of Commerce that then would be tasked with the responsibility to select those providers in each of the four functional areas, manage, put service level agreements in place, put appropriate metrics in place and ensure the successful quality delivery of those shared services.”

Cooper said the bureau level CIOs are very supportive of this effort, which, in some ways, pleasantly surprised him.

The massive cyber attack on Anthem has prompted top White House advisers to encourage Congress to fast-track legislation to bolster the protection of consumer data.

This latest breach, which exposed the sensitive information of 80 million of the managed health services company’s current and former customers and employees, makes the case for “a single national standard to protect consumers from data breaches,” John Podesta, counselor to President Obama, told reporters in a Thursday conference call, according to a Bloomberg report.

Anthem Inc., one of the country’s biggest health insurers, has been hit by a major cyberattack that could affect millions of its customers and employees. As news of the large-scale hack broke late Feb. 4, it was already having a ripple effect on Capitol Hill, with a top lawmaker calling on Congress to pass information-sharing legislation in response.

Hackers stole personal information from current and former Anthem members, including Social Security numbers, street and email addresses, and income data, the insurer said a statement that described the hack as “very sophisticated.” The firm said it had seen no evidence that credit card or medical information was compromised.

The hackers penetrated an Anthem database housing the personal information of 80 million Anthem customers and employees, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In a statement, the FBI said it was investigating the Anthem hack and praised the company’s swift response.

The Department of Homeland Security has a new big idea for improving the cybersecurity of federal agencies and key private industries: big data.

A White House progress report released Feb. 5 detailing how the federal government is seizing big data opportunities said DHS is “working across government and the private sector to identify and leverage the opportunities big data analytics presents to strengthen cybersecurity.”

When queried by Nextgov, a DHS spokesman declined to provide details about the big data efforts outlined in the report.

But in a conference call with members of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee that same day, White House and DHS officials provided glimpses into a number of ongoing initiatives that aim to fuse traditional cyber-defense methods with the real-time intelligence rendered by robust data analytics.

The rapidly growing popularity of wearable devices will lead to a surge in volume of mobile traffic, Cisco is predicting.

Cisco forecasts that 578 million wearable devices will be in use around the globe by 2019, up from 109 million last year. That’s a fivefold increase, but the resulting mobile data traffic will increase by a factor of 18 — though most of that traffic will be channeled through smartphones, the networking giant claimed Tuesday in its annual look ahead at traffic trends.

Some wearables, like the upcoming Apple Watch, require using a smartphone to transmit data. But the devices on average already generate six times more traffic per month than a basic handset, Cisco said. Its high-end example of a wearable is a GoPro video cameras, which can generate about 5 MB of mobile data traffic per minute when live streaming.

Overall, there will be 11.5 billion mobile connections by 2019. Of those, 8.3 billion will come from personal mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, which Cisco claimed will see a resurgence as they take on more features found in tablets.